


Dazzled By The Same Constellation

by kaleidomusings



Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4331934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidomusings/pseuds/kaleidomusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as Steve can remember, the skin on his wrist has always been bare, but he decided that he could live without a soulmate so long as he has Bucky and Peggy in his life. But after crashing into the ice and waking up seventy years later, Steve finds out that he actually does in fact have a soulmate. Although it's too bad he's someone Steve can never involve himself with, because Matt Murdock is a straight-laced lawyer and doesn't need someone like Steve to complicate his life. Or so he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dazzled By The Same Constellation

**Author's Note:**

> It seemed like a good idea at the time. Don't judge me.

"Never would have expected HYDRA to set up base right in the heart of Hell's Kitchen," Sam says.

"I'm just annoyed we didn't find it first," Natasha replies. 

Steve fights a smile as he listens to them through the comm he has in his ear. Steve knows his friends are trying to distract him so he doesn't get his hopes up about finding Bucky (since they lost his trail all the times before), which he appreciates. 

It's obvious from the wild goose chase Bucky has sent them on that he can take care of himself and avoid being found if he doesn't want to be, but Steve can't help looking for him anyway. Which is why Sam and Natasha are putting their own lives on hold to search for Bucky in Hell's Kitchen of all places. Steve almost didn't believe Bucky would be here at all, but he trusts Natasha and when she showed him the security footage she pulled up at a convenience store, he dropped everything to check it out. Because Bucky had been looking straight at the camera, his eyes piercing even in the grainy resolution, as if he was staring right at Steve. And maybe it doesn't mean anything, but Steve can't help thinking this time he can finally bring Bucky home. 

"Anything yet?" he asks, excited and anxious. It's a little embarrassing how desperate he sounds, but Natasha and Sam mercifully don't call him on it. 

"Negative," Natasha says instead. 

"Nothing here either," Sam says. 

Before Steve can respond, the night is shattered by the unmistakable sound of guns going off. He leaps up from his hiding place and bursts into a run, his heart pounding. Steve doesn't know if it's HYDRA, or Bucky, or someone caught up in something they shouldn't be, but Steve can't just sit back idly by and do nothing. He hears Sam and Natasha asking him what's wrong, but he doesn't stop to answer. He follows the noise to an alleyway a group of people -four men and three women- fighting with a man in a red body suit. Although outnumbered and armed with two red batons in each hand, the man seems to be holding his own against them. He moves and twists in a way that reminds Steve of Natasha's graceful -but deadly- fighting style and easily wrenches the guns away from two of the men before knocking them out. 

One of the women raises her gun at the man's back just as he turns away from her and Steve doesn't stop to hesitate. He yanks his shield from his back and throws it with all his might. The woman goes flying into two of her comrades, sending them all crashing to the ground, before his shield bounces back to him. The last man and and two of the women launch themselves at Steve, but he easily knocks them out with a good smack with his shield. 

Steve turns to face the man in red, only to pause when he feels the muzzle of a gun press between his shoulder blades. 

"Don't move," the only remaining HYDRA agent says and cocks her gun. "I have orders to kill if you don't cooperate."

Steve is startled when he realizes that she isn't talking to him, but is addressing the man in red. Which means that HYDRA wants this guy alive for some reason. 

"I'm not one to listen to sound advice," the man in red says casually, and Steve is surprised by how deep his voice is. 

The woman opens her mouth to respond but Steve takes advantage of her distraction and grabs her wrist, wrenching the gun away from him. It goes off and hits the man in red, but the bullet glances harmlessly off his armor before Steve knocks her unconscious with a spinning kick. 

He moves quickly to the fallen HYDRA agents, checking their pulses to make sure they're still alive before cuffing their wrists together. Steve senses more than hears the blow the man in red aims at his head and ducks away from those strange red batons, unnerved by how narrowly he avoids getting hit by them and how fast this guy moves.

"What are you doing?" Steve demands when the man in red charges at him again. 

"This town is my responsibility," he says in that deep voice and one of the batons connects painfully with Steve's shoulder. 

But it's what Steve was counting on, because it allows him to twist the baton out of his grasp, tossing it quickly away. "You shouldn't get caught up with this," Steve says, blocking all the blows he can. But the man in red fights as stealthy and dirty as Natasha. He feigns a kick to Steve's side and wrestles his shield away from him, then slams his elbow hard against Steve's chest. It has him doubling over, coughing. "So you're a vigilante," Steve manages to gasp out. The man isn't quite strong enough to break any of Steve's ribs, but he uses so much force behind his punches, it almost feels like he might have. "These aren't some alleyway thugs you can-"

"I know exactly who and what HYDRA is," the man in red snarls, angrily. "I don't need you telling me what to do."

Steve can feel his own temper rise. He hears Natasha and Sam's voices through his comm, warning him to back off and tell them where he is, but he's too furious to stop. "I've seen first hand what these people are capable of. They-"

The man in red pins him against a brick wall, baton at his throat and grip tight on Steve's wrists. Steve could easily break the hold if he wanted to, but the man isn't trying to hurt him anymore. Instead, it's as if he's frozen and shocked into stillness. Steve frowns, about to ask what he's doing when he feels a gloved finger slip under the sleeve of his shirt, over the skin of his wrist. Right over his mark.

"Get off me," Steve growls, shoving the man in red away with everything he has. 

He slams into the far wall and looks pissed about it, but doesn't seem to want to fight anymore. Unfortunately, Steve is too angry about it to feel grateful. He tugs his shirt sleeve over his wrist, feeling violated even though he knows the man in red shouldn't be able to feel it with those thick leather gloves on. But it's _his_ mark, and what the man just did was a complete invasion of privacy.

"Cap, we have another sighting of Barnes not too far from your current location," Natasha says. And those words manage to break through his angry haze. 

Steve presses his hand against his ear. "Acknowledged. I'm on my way. Be sure to send the clean up crew." 

He glances at the man in red, whose face is unreadable under his mask. A mask with little red horns at the top. A red devil?

Steve sighs. "Listen… Just try to be careful, all right?" He knows his fair share of vigilantes, and it never ends well for any of them. 

The man in red pauses, tilting his head to one side as if puzzled. Steve throws him one last look before turning to grab his shield and running where Natasha directs him to. 

Forget the man in red, he has to find Bucky. 

\--

Until Steve woke up from the ice, the skin of his wrist had always been bare. 

 _A blank_ , the schoolyard bullies used to call him. It was a rude and ugly word used to describe those who -for whatever reason- didn't have the name of their soulmate on their skin. There were a lot of reasons things like that seemed to happen to certain people and not others, but the way society viewed it was the same: not having a name meant some kind of flaw or imperfection. Something to warrant being unwanted by anyone.

Whenever he came home from school in tears, his mother tried to assure him that there were a lot of reasons why he didn't have his soulmate's name. None of which were his fault.

 _Most likely_ , she would say, her face sunken and pale with sickness, _They haven't been born yet to meet you_.

But every time Steve ran his fingers over his wrist, he wondered if maybe there was something wrong with him after all. There had to be. Especially when he became friends with Bucky and the letters of his name still wouldn't appear on Steve's wrist. The disappointment he felt was crushing, because he loved Bucky. He loved him more than anyone else in his life and he didn't even care it was against the law to feel that way. But -while Steve had never seen the name on Bucky's wrist- he wouldn't risk Bucky's safety or his happiness like that. Besides, Steve was hardly a catch and Bucky deserved someone who wasn't sick most of the time or got into fights when he wasn't. So Steve buried those feelings deep inside himself and promised to never speak about it for as long as he lived.

Then the war came and Steve met Peggy. After becoming Captain America, he was more confident with what he had to offer a partner, but Peggy showed him the name on her wrist, making his heart plummet. Even though they felt the same way about each other, he decided he wouldn't jeopardize her future with her soulmate because he was selfish. He focused instead on taking down HYDRA with Bucky and the Howling Commandos, putting everything he had into winning the war, so his friends could live in a world without fear or injustice. 

Until the day Bucky fell from the train and something inside of Steve died too. Which was why -when he had no choice except to crash the plane- it was without regret. He was a blank and didn't even have a soulmate to leave behind. He was alone, in every sense of the word. At the very least, he got to say goodbye to Peggy in the end. 

In those final moments before a frigid watery grave, Steve pulled off his glove and stared at the naked skin of his wrist. It was actually almost a relief that he would never know who his soulmate was, because at least they wouldn't have disappointed with him. Or maybe he never had one at all, which was probably just as well. He never expected anything different. 

 _It's better this way_ , Steve decided as the water rose up to meet him. He was tired of having his heart broken over and over.

But he didn't die. 

Instead, he woke up decades later to learn that everything he knew and loved was gone, except a name had also finally found its place on his wrist at last. But instead of being relieved about it, all Steve could feel was a heavy sense of loss.


End file.
